1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for forming at least one inorganic layer on a support. The invention also relates -to a barrier laminate having an excellent barrier property, to a device and an optical component comprising the barrier laminate.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in the field of liquid-crystal display devices, organic EL devices (organic electroluminescent devices) and the like, plastic film substrates have become used in place of heavy and crackable glass substrates, as being advantageous in that they are lightweight and are hardly crackable and, in addition, they are flexible. However, as compared with glass substrates, plastic film substrates are problematic in that their water-vapor barrier property is poor. When a substrate having a poor water-vapor barrier property is used in liquid-crystal display devices or organic EL devices, the devices may have display defects owing to water vapor penetration into the liquid-crystal cell, etc.
Accordingly, for enhancing the barrier property of plastic film substrates, widely employed is a technique of forming an inorganic layer having a barrier property on a plastic film support. For example, there are known a plastic film support coated with silicon oxide through vapor deposition thereon (for example, see JP-B 53-12953 (pp. 1-3)), and a plastic film support coated with aluminum oxide through vapor deposition thereon (for example, see JP-A 58-217344 (pp. 1-4)). In addition, also known is a plastic film support coated with silicon oxide, aluminum oxide or indium/tin composite oxide according to a sputtering method; and the best one of the type exhibits a barrier property of 0.011 g/m2/day/inorganic layer (for example, see JP-A 2002-264274 (p. 4)).
In forming an inorganic layer on a support under a vacuum condition as in a sputtering method, the support must be conveyed and processed in order in plural closed chambers. For example, JP-A 2001-335916 (FIG. 2) describes a process of treating a support by conveying it in order in a load-locking chamber, a degassing chamber, an inorganic layer forming chamber and an unloading chamber all having nearly the same capacity.